Out of His Reach
by Back-From-A-Guilt-Trip
Summary: King Candy's life in Sugar Rush was just about perfect, but there was one thing that he never had. One-shot.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Wreck-It Ralph.

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**Out of His Reach**

* * *

Only a few times a year did he dare step out of Sugar Rush. One of those times was Princess Peach's annual gathering for the royals of the arcade. It would look suspicious if he didn't go, so every year he took the risk and counted down the minutes until he could politely leave the party without offending the princess. He was always immensely relieved when it was over. There were too many powerful figures assembled in one place for him to feel entirely secure.

Having successfully gotten through that year's party without drawing too much attention to himself, he whistled a merry tune as he stepped onto the ferry that would take him into Toad Town, where he'd board the train to the Game Central Station. Eagerly, he anticipated all the comforts awaiting him at home. A hot bubble bath, cocoa with marshmallows, his fuzzy slippers. Soon he would be safely in his castle and wouldn't have to make any wretched small talk with anyone. Such _bliss._

It was going to be a fairly lengthy ride to Toad Town, so he took a seat and nonchalantly observed his fellow passengers. There were mostly Toads and Yoshis, and several scattered villain NPCs from the Darklands, King Bowser's territory. Why they were even allowed on the boat, King Candy couldn't guess. It was alright for Bowser and Peach to be civil to each other and invite each other to events for political reasons, but King Candy didn't believe that good guys and bad guys should mix. It upset the natural order of things, and only caused trouble. But if this game wanted to take that risk, then that was their problem, not his.

He kept surveying the widespread deck, until something in particular caught his eye. More specifically, _someone._ There was a human woman on the ferry. A woman with hair the colour of ripe wheat. A woman in a loose lavender dress, leaning idly against the railing, looking out onto the water with an expression that indicated that her mind was a million miles away from the present. An attractive woman, by anyone's standards. He had seen her before. But where?

Oh, yes. Now he remembered. She had been at the party earlier than evening, but only briefly. While pretending to listen to another guest's painfully boring jabber, he'd glanced out a window and seen Bowser talking to her in the garden. The garden had been dark, so he hadn't seen her face clearly then. He'd just assumed that she was some sort of uniquely designed NPC servant—like Sour Bill— and that she worked for the Koopa King. In other words, she was no one important.

Now, seeing her on the brightly lit ferry, it became evident to him that she was higher on the social scale than that. The dress she was wearing was made of the finest chiffon on the market, and there were valuable gem stones in her ears. Her lips were painted red and her eyes were heavily lined with kohl. She looked ready for an evening out. So why had she been lurking around Princess Peach's party, conspiring with Bowser in the dark?

His interest couldn't help but be piqued. If anyone loved other people's drama, it was him. He pulled a Koopa aside and asked him who the human woman was and what role she played in the game.

The Koopa raised a surprised eyebrow at him. "You don't know? I thought everyone knew."

King Candy frowned. Being barricaded in Sugar Rush meant that he was usually out of the loop when it came to the arcade's gossip. A frustrating but necessary sacrifice. "Why don't you be a pal and fill me in?"

"She's King Bowser's girlfriend," the Koopa informed him. "Or mistress. Or whatever."

Mistress? That oversized, foul-breathed lizard had a _mistress?_

"You must be joking!" King Candy exclaimed. "Tell me you're joking."

"Nah, man, it's true! I swear on my Ma's grave! Remember that circus game that got unplugged last year? She was one of the acrobats, and-"

The Koopa told him everything. The woman's name was Celine Le Clerc, and during her game's six-year stay at Litwak's she had been the ringmaster's lover, though she also slept her way through the rest of the circus as well. When her game was unplugged, she escaped. She had avoided homelessness because King Bowser had quickly taken a special interest in her due to her physical resemblance to Princess Peach.

"He can't have Peach, so he snagged her carbon copy instead," the Koopa went on, grinning roguishly. He obviously found his king's love life very amusing. "He's got her all set up in a fancy villa near his castle, and he visits her four or five nights a week. He gives her lots of money too. He'll give her whatever she wants as long as she stays faithful to him."

"Hmm. Interesting…" King Candy looked over at the woman, who was now smoking a cigarette in a silver holder. He supposed that anything could be bought with money as long as you had enough of it, including the companionship of a beautiful woman. He imagined having a mistress of his own, installed in a gingerbread house near his castle, in the high-class quarter of Sugar Rush. He would visit her after a long day of racing, and she would entertain him in ways that no one else in his E-rated game could. He would be a generous lover. She would have the best of everything that Sugar Rush could offer, because a king's mistress deserved nothing less. The fantasy excited him. Suddenly, he wanted it more than anything. And, like everything else, he would get it.

"Please excuse me," he told the Koopa as he got up from his seat. Feigning indifference, he casually strolled across the deck towards the ravishing Celine Le Clerc, who didn't take any notice of him until he greeted her courteously and engaged her in a light conversation. She was a charming creature, and they seemed to hit it off instantly, which convinced him that fate had brought them together on the ferry that night for a reason. And that was why after she was made well aware of who he was and what he had to offer, he made her a proposition that she would be foolish to refuse.

* * *

He was fuming when he disembarked the ferry. She had refused him. And slapped him, hard. His left cheek was stinging. Who did that overpriced whore think she was, rejecting and assaulting the king of Sugar Rush?

"I already belong to a king," she'd hissed at him before delivering the brutal slap. She had fallen in love with Bowser, and she adored his children. She wouldn't give them up for anything, and _especially_ not an old, pompous creep like him, and his kiddie candy game.

"Her loss," King Candy inwardly growled, as he stomped his way towards the train station. She could keep her Darklandian villa and her fat Koopa lover and his snot-nosed brats. He didn't need a bitch like her in his life, anyway. He was a _king! _He was wealthy and fun and well-dressed and successful. He could have his pick of the fine ladies of the arcade. He would find another woman to be his mistress.

But he never did.


End file.
